VIENNA (Reuters) - Melting glaciers, disappearing ice
sheets and warming water could lift sea levels by as much as
1.5 meters (4.9 feet) by the end of this century, displacing
tens of millions of people, new research showed on Tuesday.

Presented at a European Geosciences Union conference, the
research forecasts a rise in sea levels three times higher than
that predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) last year. The U.N. climate panel shared the 2007 Nobel
Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

Svetlana Jevrejeva of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory
in Britain said the estimate was based on a new model allowing
accurate reconstruction of sea levels over the past 2,000
years.

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"For the past 2,000 years, the sea level was very stable,"
she told journalists on the margins of the Vienna meeting.

But the pace at which sea levels are rising is
accelerating, and they will be 0.8-1.5 meters higher by next
century, researchers including Jevrejeva said in a statement.

Sea levels rose 2 cm in the 18th century, 6 cm in the 19th
century and 19 cm last century, she said, adding: "It seems
that rapid rise in the 20th century is from melting ice
sheets."

Scientists fiercely debate how much sea levels will rise,
with the IPCC predicting increases of between 18 cm and 59 cm.

"The IPCC numbers are underestimates," said Simon Holgate,
also of the Proudman Laboratory.

The researchers said the IPCC had not accounted for ice
dynamics -- the more rapid movement of ice sheets due to melt
water which could markedly speed up their disappearance and
boost sea levels.

But this effect is set to generate around one-third of the
future rise in sea levels, according to Steve Nerem from the
University of Colorado in the United States.

"There is a lot of evidence out there that we will see
around one meter in 2100," said Nerem, adding the rise would
not be uniform around the globe, and that more research was
needed to determine the effects on single regions.

Scientists might debate the levels, but they agree on who
will be hardest hit -- developing nations in Africa and Asia
who lack the infrastructural means to build up flood defenses.
They include countries like Bangladesh, almost of all of whose
land surface is a within a meter of the current sea level.

"If (the sea level) rises by one meter, 72 million Chinese
people will be displaced, and 10 percent of the Vietnamese
population," said Jevrejeva.